A recent report airing on KARE 11 television noted that, “Augsburg College is located in the heart of Minneapolis in one of the most diverse zip codes in the city.” And, the College’s graduating class reflects that diversity.

As the story explained, “Under President Paul C. Pribbenow‘s leadership, the college has more than tripled the percentage of minorities in the full undergraduate body. In 2006, there were 11 percent compared to 33 percent in 2016.” The traditional undergraduate graduating class of 2016 is comprised of more than 42 percent students of color — a record achievement for the institution.

Pribbenow said Augsburg has been committed to attracting and supporting students from minority populations for more than a decade and has partnered with college readiness programs to achieve its success.

The broadcast report also included an interview with Robert Harper ’16, an alumnus who described why he values his college experience and the diverse makeup of his graduating class.

(SIOUX FALLS, SOUTH DAKOTA) — Augsburg College History Department faculty members Kirsten Delegard and Michael Lansing were presented the Alice Smith Prize for best public history project completed in the previous calendar year by the Midwestern History Association.

The Historyapolis Project (historyapolis.com and facebook.com/TheHistoryapolisProject) was created when Delegard, a current scholar-in-residence at Augsburg College, realized that her hometown of Minneapolis was blind to its own tumultuous history, more comfortable planning for the future than confronting the past. Augsburg students are deeply involved with the project, which aims to make the city’s history accessible and helps catalyze community dialogue around challenging aspects of local history.

Delegard holds a doctorate in history from Duke University and is the author of “Battling Miss Bolsheviki: The Origins of Female Conservatism in the United States” (Penn, 2012). Delegard was also the co-editor, with Nancy A. Hewitt, for the two-volume textbook “Women, Families and Communities: Readings in American History“ (Longman Publishing, 2008). As part of the Historyapolis Project, Delegard is at work on a new history of Minneapolis, which is tentatively titled “City of Light and Darkness: The Making of a Progressive Metropolis in Minneapolis.”

A retail and affordable housing development founded by Augsburg College alumnus and former NBA player Devean George ’99 was featured on a recent WCCO-TV broadcast.

The segment included several statements by George about his desire to help revitalize the area near Penn Avenue and Golden Valley Road in Minneapolis, which is often cited as an impoverished neighborhood with high crime rates. George also discussed his childhood connection with the neighborhood and the importance of affordable housing.

Matthew Beckman, assistant professor of biology, joined his research collaborators Grant Two Bulls and Amy Myrbo in writing a commentary for the Star Tribune that voiced support for renaming Minneapolis’ Lake Calhoun. As the commentary noted, recent events have initiated a debate regarding whether the lake should return to its original name in the Dakota language: Mde Maka Ska.

Beckman, Two Bulls, and Myrbo conducted research during summer 2014 that involved taking a core sample of lake sediment and studying its pollen content as a way to examine the ecological record of an early-19th-century Dakota agricultural village on its shore. This geological study of the lake showed a long history of Native American natural resource stewardship that extended centuries before the arrival of surveyors backed by John C. Calhoun, the lake’s namesake.

U.S. News & World Report recently published an article detailing common missteps among top employees, and one of the issues was identified by Augsburg’s own Dave Conrad, assistant director of the Augsburg College Master of Business Administration program at Rochester and associate professor in Rochester and Minneapolis.

Conrad noted that it can be detrimental for an employee to be overly negative, which potentially could signal that the employee isn’t right for the company.

The Augsburg Native American Film Series, in collaboration with Phillips Indian Educators and the Parkway Theater, presents Where Condor Meets Eagle: Indigenous Bolivian and Native American Film Festival and Cultural Exchange Screening, March 16-18 at the Minneapolis Parkway Theater. All events are free and open to the public.

In early January, an airplane crossed the Atlantic from the U.S. to the E.U. carrying, among other passengers, Shannon Backes, a junior international business major from Augsburg. Another plane flew in the opposite direction bringing Timo Birkhold from Mosbach, Germany to Minneapolis. The two students have effectively traded places as each spends a semester abroad through the International Partners program.

Backes [pictured left] arrived in Mannheim, Germany on Jan. 13 to attend a two-week German language course at Mannheim University. Following that program, she moved to Mosbach, a small town about two hours from Frankfurt, to begin her studies at Berufsakademie Mosbach. Continue reading “The Minneapolis – Mosbach exchange”→

It should come as no surprise that a school like Augsburg College, with its commitment to opening doors to first-generation and under-served students, would attract alumni of the Admission Possible program. Over the years, Admission Possible has provided a bridge — from St. Paul to Minneapolis — for many of Augsburg’s staff members, in particular those who have joined our admissions or student service teams after completing their service at Admission Possible. Recently, the bridge traffic flowed in the other direction when Ashley Booker (pictured left), a student in the Master of Arts in Education program at Augsburg, started a new job. Continue reading “Creating a bridge — Admission Possible and Augsburg College”→

A new collaborative theater project tells the story of six mothers from different ethnic backgrounds and traditions, across generations, and how they juggle their numerous identities as care-giver, teacher, parent, worker, and leader. This new work, called “The Mother Project” will have a “raw” staging at Michael Sommer’s Open Eye Figure Theatre, 506 East 24th St., Minneapolis, on Sunday, Aug. 19 at 3 p.m.

“The Mother Project” was created through a collaborative process lead by Darcey Engen, assistant professor of theatre arts at Augsburg College. The six mothers, Jeany Parks, Nanci Olesen, Darcey Engen, Maria Asp, Sonny Case, and Erin Carlson Sutton, began to create the new work through writing exercises accounting their individual journeys through motherhood. Continue reading “Mothers tell their own stories in new theater project”→